Out of 26 Gold Derby “experts”, eight (8) are betting on The Shape of Water winning the Best Picture Oscar — Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, EW‘s Sara Wilkommerson, Susan Wloszczyna, Jack Matthews, Andrea Mandell, Gold Derby‘s Joyce Eng, Variety‘s Tim Gray and Rotten Tomatoes‘ Grae Drake.

There are currently eleven (11) Three Billboards believers, which reflects the fact that Martin McDonagh‘s small-town drama has been gathering momentum over the past couple of weeks and especially since the BAFTAs — myself, Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, Michael Musto, GD honcho Tom O’Neill, Bonnie Fuller, Fox’s Tariq Kahn, ESPN’s Adnan Virk, Rolling Stone‘s Peter Travers, USA Today‘s Brian Truitt and GD’s Thelma Adams.

And there are five (5) Get Out die-hards — The Tracking Board‘s Ed Douglas, Vanity Fair‘s Michael Hogan, Yahoo‘s Kevin Polowy, Fandango‘s Erik Davis and HuffPo‘s Matthew Jacobs.

All hail the character, backbone and general indifference-to-consensus of EW‘s Christopher Rosen, who is standing by Lady Bird. Of the four leading GD contenders, Greta Gerwig‘s period drama is far and away my favorite as well as the best.

In Ramin Bahrani‘s 99 Homes, Michael Shannon played a foreclosure shark who was showing financially struggling Andrew Garfield the ropes of the Florida real-estate game. You knew Garfield would rebel against Shannon’s cynicism at the end because that’s what guys do in films like this — they stand up and cleanse their souls at the end of Act Three. Bahrani’s Fahrenheit 451, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel about a dystopian society that burns books, feels like the same basic dynamic — Shannon the hardened cynic explaining the logistics and necessity of book-burning to the naive Michael B. Jordan. Costarring Sofia Boutella, Martin Donovan, Laura Harrier, Keir Dullea. The HBO pic pops sometime in the spring.

I’m sorry to report that the great Cynthia Heimel, a wise and once-scalpel-wielding New York columnist (“Problem Lady”), satiric women’s-market author (“Sex Tips For Girls,” “If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?,” “Advanced Sex Tips for Girls: This Time It’s Personal“) and legendary party girl, is gone. She died yesterday. Hugs and condolences to friends, family (i.e., her son Brodie), colleagues, fans.

Heimel and “Details” columnist Stephen Saban were major Manhattan scenesters and Soho Weekly News chroniclers in the late ’70s and ’80s. They visited every hot Manhattan club, knew everyone, partied’ till the wee hours. I knew Cynthia a bit starting in ’81 or thereabouts, although she was way above my journalistic station back then. We actually went out a couple of times, if you wanna know. She lived in the Chelsea district (18th or 19th near 8th) when I was living on West 4th and then 81 Bank Street. Then we went our separate ways.

Then we re-friended in ’15 and ’16 when she moved to a modest home in Inglewood. I can’t honestly describe Cynthia as a happy-camper type when we started to chat back then. We went to a screening of Spotlight in…I forget, November of ’15 or thereabouts. We went on a couple of shopping and medical-clinic errands. (She wasn’t radiantly healthy.) We watched a couple of films and had dinner at her place once. She had a friendly dog who was part husky. We kind of piddled along for a while, then we drifted apart again.

Cynthia and I had a mutual friend in legendary film critic Andy Klein. Andy, Cynthia and I chatted back and forth and hung a couple of times in ’16, I think. We definitely shared a dinner a couple of years ago (March or April of ’16) in Santa Monica. 6 pm update: I called Klein this morning after hearing of Cynthia’s demise — he called back around 20 minutes ago. I also wrote Saban, who lives in Echo Park and is doing okay, I’ve read. He hasn’t replied.

One time in the spring of ’16 Cynthia stopped responding to my messages. After a couple of days I asked Klein if she was alive and well. “I’ve spoken to her both last night and the night before, so I can attest that she’s okay,” he replied. “Depression has stifled her social interactions. I mean, I’m depressed but she’s DEPRESSED.”

“Very sorry, very sad,” I wrote on Facebook. “I was a huge fan of Cynthia’s back in the day. A sassy-sexy Dorothy Parker-level columnist and author, at least in my estimation. An excellent writer, quite the wit, didn’t miss a trick. She was very highly renowned in the late Carter, Reagan, Poppy and Clinton eras. Things started to downshift after she lost her monthly column for Playboy in ’00.”

On top of everything else Cynthia was a mensch. She was often gloomy but once you had her attention you could trust her judgment, and when she needed a favor I always came through.

Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan, Stacey Wilson Hunt and Chris Lee have posted a piece about the views and attitudes of the Academy’s new voters, all of whom were invited to join the Academy over the last two years and who constitute roughly 17% or 18% of the present membership. Of the 14 members interviewed, more than half were women and more than a third were people of color.

By all means read the piece, but I for one found it surprising if not shocking that the biggest concerns of the New Academy Kidz appear to be representation, representation and….uhhm, oh, yes…representation.

In other words, after reading the article I wasn’t persuaded that these guys are greatly concerned with the idea of honoring great cinema according to standards that have been accepted for many decades. Tastes have changed but regard for cinema art never faltered. Until now, that is.

If these 14 Academy members were to sit down for a round-table discussion with the ghosts of James Agee, Ernst Lubitsch, Katharine Hepburn, Pauline Kael, Samuel Fuller, Ida Lupino, Irving Thalberg, Luis Bunuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Marlon Brando, F. W. Murnau, Andrew Sarris and Marlene Dietrich, I don’t think there’d be any kind of meeting of the minds. Or not much of one.

I mainly got the idea that the New Academy Kidz are heavily invested in (a) inter-industry politics, (b) a mission of bringing about long-overdue change and the necessity of advancing diverse representation as well as the concerns of women in all branches of the film industry, and (c) hoping to weaken or otherwise diminish the power of the old white fuddy-dud boomers.

“The bulk of the new voters we surveyed were generally pleased with this year’s Oscar nominations,” the Vulture guys have written, “and many detected a clear delineation between traditional Academy picks and the sort of fare their freshman class was more inclined to go for.

“’With Get Out, Lady Bird and even Call Me by Your Name, you’re feeling the younger demographic,” said a new member of the directors branch. “Then you have The Post and Darkest Hour, which definitely represents the older half of the Academy.”

HE insertion: Wait…”even” Call Me By Your Name? Fuck does that mean? That Luca Guadagnino’s film isn’t outsiderish or P.O.C. enough? Or that it feels a bit too mainstream or something?

As a former employee of Kevin Smith (salaried columnist from ’02 to August ’04) and a longtime admirer of his films and his patter, I’m personally relieved and overjoyed that he escaped the Big Sleep last night after succumbing to a “massive” heart attack. That Instagram photo he released last night looks like a signature image from an alternate-universe version of Get Out — the only thing missing is a tear running down his cheek.

As a lifelong loather of almost all things Christian (mainly due to the rightwing political associations that have clung to this arrogant faith since the political takeover in the early ’80s), I naturally recoiled when I read those “praying for you, brah” tweets by Chris Pratt. The 38 year-old actor has acquired a rep as an allegedly conservative-minded fellow, so the shoe seemed to fit. I therefore understand or half-sympathize why Pratt was attacked for trying to go all Christian-smothery on Smith.

On the other hand the response from Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn struck me as sensible:

“So I just read Pratt’s tweet to Kevin Smith saying he would pray for him & made the mistake of reading the comments, many of which go off on Chris for saying he’d pray. If you’re offering Parkland shooting survivors prayers, but are unwilling to deal with the problems of gun violence in this country in a practical way, those prayers are empty. But no one expects Chris Pratt to shoulder doctors out of the way and perform heart surgery on Kevin Smith. Nor does Kevin need Chris to pay his medical bills. So I think his prayers are appreciated, and about all he can do.”

Yesterday on Facebook HE’s own Jordan Ruimy again predicted that Jordan Peele‘s Get Out will win the Best Picture Oscar. Then he doubled-down on Twitter this morning.

What he means is that Get Out, a half creepy, half satiric, racially-stamped Stepford Wives, will slipslide into a win because a huge number of Academy members have it down as their #2 or #3 choice, and that the “kooky” preferential ballot will do the rest.

Hollywood Elsewhere says no way. I’m not even sure that Get Out will win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, which will most likely be won by Three Billboards‘ Martin McDonagh. It might win in this category, but forget Best Picture — the apparent momentum of the last week has all been with Three Billboards with everyone assuming that The Shape of Water‘s Guillermo del Toro will take Best Director.

I’ll say this much: One thing favoring Get Out is that the people who love it really love it, while the Three Billboards and Shape of Water crowd is more composed of likers and accomodationists.

HE arguments & agreements with Facebook comments:

“That would be great but I doubt it” — Alex Conn. HE: “What exactly would be ‘great’ about Get Out winning Best Picture? Great in what way? And how likely is this? A clever, financially successful genre film that says upscale liberal whites are just as odious as Charlottesville racists — who in AcademyLand really believes that?”

“It’s a good movie but not Oscar-worthy. The academy will give it the old ‘good effort, good try’ treatment come Oscar time. My money is on Three Billboards.” — Trexis Griffin. HE to Griffin: “But that’s the new thing — a significant portion of the new membership does consider genre fare like Get Out to be Oscar-worthy.”

“Nah. Too genre for Oscar. This one screams Best Original Screenplay.” — Tim Fuglei. HE comment: And possibly not even that.

“Jordan, will you eat a bug if wrong?” — Jay Smith. HE to Ruimy: Seriously — what act of contrition will you actually perform if you’re wrong?

“It’s Get Out or Three Billboards. There are good and bad reasons for both. Three Billboards is actor-driven and actors dominate [in the voting]. Get Out could win, but you have to wonder how the BAFTAs had the option of choosing it to win Best Picture but went with Three Billboards for both Best Picture and Best British film? Between that and having no SAG ensemble nom is why I am not predicting Get Out to win, but it is one of three that could. I have no idea what will win.” — Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone.

So all of a sudden and “out of the fucking blue,” as Chris Penn said in Reservoir Dogs, Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis) is suddenly a rightwing, pistol-brandishing Trump and NRA guy? We all understood the motive for Charles Bronson‘s Kersey becoming an urban vigilante who drilled bad guys because the cops wouldn’t do their jobs, but when did this activity become quote-unquote patriotic? Or is there something about the plot of Eli Roth’s soon-to-open film (MGM, 3.2) that I haven’t gotten wind of?

I’m presuming for now this is strictly an MGM marketing pitch, and that it has nothing to do with Willis going after ISIS or something in that vein. Could this poster be a lightning-fast exploiting of the widespread outrage when everyone learned that local Broward County cops and the FBI did nothing when told that Parkland massacre fiend Nikolas Cruz was well armed and ready to explode?

Yesterday I marathoned through all four hour-long episodes of David Hare and S.J. Clarkson‘s Collateral, which will begin streaming on Netflix on March 9th.

I can’t review it until this Wednesday (2.28), but I can at least call it a brilliantly written, exquisitely acted British conspiracy thriller of the highest order. Which is more or less what all the British critics have been saying.

It’s about a murder, but is not so much a “whodunit” but a “whydunit,” as Hare has said. I’ll leave it there for now.

Carey Mulligan, as Detective Inspector Kip Glaspie, owns this series with quiet, exacting authority. You can read her every thought and current in each and every moment. She’s just a genius at guiding you along and making you root for Kip every step of the way.

Remember how everyone loved Helen Mirren as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, the British cop series? Mulligan matches Mirren line for dry line, inflection for inflection, slightly raised eyebrow for slightly raised eyebrow. She’s at the absolute top of her game here.

A BBC Two series, Collateral began airing in England on a sequential episode basis on Monday, 2.12. The fourth episode will air on Monday, 3.5. Netflix will stream all four episodes simultaneously four days later.

HE to Journo Pals, sent this morning: “Has anyone received an invite to Eli Roth and Joe Carnahan‘s Death Wish (MGM/Annapurna, 3.2)? It opens in four days and I haven’t received jack squat.” Journo #1: “Nope.” Journo #2: “Uhhm, no.” Journo #3: “No, but I’m not exactly eager to see it either.”

Word around the campfire says that Carnahan’s 2015 script is better than the rewritten hodgepodge that the film is based upon.

Posted a few weeks ago: I’m not saying the home-invader murderers in Eli Roth and Joe Carnahan‘s remake of Death Wish should be from this or that tribe, but the U.S. is a multicultural society, after all, and it does seem a tiny bit chickenshit that the bad guys are generic white scumbags, or cut from the same cloth as the three invaders (Jeff Goldblum played one of them) in Michael Winner’s 1974 original.

The last four or five minutes of Joel and Ethan Coen‘s A Serious Man is one of the all-time greatest finales of 21st Century cinema, hands down. Because it summarizes the basic ethos of the film — “If God doesn’t like you, you’re fucked and that’s that” — and because the approaching tornado storm is so perfectly ominous. The visual effects maestros were Oliver Arnold, Andy Burmeister and Alexandre Cancado of Luma Pictures.

Here’s a brief chat I had with the Coens on 9.13.08, during the Toronto Film Festival.

“Slow Death by Jewish Kiki,” posted on 9.11.09: “Joel and Ethan Coen‘s A Serious Man is a brilliant LQTM black comedy that out-misanthropes Woody Allen by a country mile and positively seethes with contempt for complacent religious culture (in this case ’60s era Minnesota Judaism). I was knocked flat in the best way imaginable and have put it right at the top of my Coen-best list. God, it’s such a pleasure to take in something this acidic and well-scalpeled. The Coens are fearless at this kind of artful diamond-cutting.

“The wickedly funereal tone and lack of stars means it isn’t going to make a dime, but it’s a high-calibre achievement by the most gifted filmmaking brothers of our time, and it absolutely must rank as one of the year’s ten Best Picture nominees when all is said and done. The Academy fudgies will not be permitted to brush this one aside, and if they do there will be torches and pitchforks such as James Whale never imagined at the corner of Wilshire and La Peer.

“The worldview of this maliciously wicked film (which isn’t “no-laugh funny” as much as wicked-bitter-toxic funny, which I personally prize above all other kinds) is black as night, black as a damp and sealed-off cellar. Scene after scene tells us that life is drip-drip torture, betrayal and muted hostility are constants, all manner of bad things (including tornadoes) are just around the corner, your family and neighbors will cluck-cluck as you sink into quicksand, etc.

It’s warm today in Los Angeles — 65 degrees and only 11 am. The cold snap (evening temps in the 40s, which felt like 30s due to winds) is over for now. Soon it’ll be March, and then comes April and May. And then the fifth anniversary of the 6.19.13 death of James Gandolfini. I’m mentioning this because this morning I happened to re-read one of the ugliest comment-thread pile-ons in the history of this column. It followed a plainly-written “this is how it happened” piece about my having “crashed” (in a vague manner of speaking) Gandolfini’s funeral service at Manhattan’s St. John The Divine on 6.27.13.

For two days I was seething with rage while coping with a broken heart. The ugliness amazed me although a few commenters, at least, understood and respected the fact that I attended out of love and respect. Variety‘s Stephen Gaydos said it best in 6.28.13 post: “Wells is a huge [Gandolfini] fan and so he paid his respects to a guy who was talented and died too young. Those are the facts. The rest is cockatoo chatter.”

At the end of a local ABC News report about the funeral[above], the anchor guy states that “the funeral was closed to the press.” The beat-down I received that day was partly about my having claimed that press wasn’t invited (or at least that I wasn’t) and that I had to circumvent stern-looking women with clipboards who were checking names, etc.

Here it is again: “I got hated on big-time for tweeting about having crashed James Gandolfini‘s funeral this morning at Manhattan’s St. John The Divine. Yes, I flippantly used the term “funeral crasher!” because that’s what I was. But it’s the singer, not the song. The haters ignored the fact that I (a) asked for God’s forgiveness in having crashed, (b) ascribed my crashing success to the intervention of angels, and (c) said that I crashed with reverence and respect for James, David Chase and all the “made” Sopranos guys. The rush-to-judgment pissheads simply weren’t listening. They never do. They’re scolds…shrill finger-wagging scolds going “tut-tut!” and “no, no, no!”

“I didn’t crash Gandolfini’s funeral like some giggling monkey, and I didn’t take the subway up there this morning with the intention of crashing. I crashed it solemnly like some devoted choirboy or Sopranos family soldier. I just grimmed up and shuffled up the cathedral steps and…well, go ahead and laugh but I honestly believe that I got past security because some angel from heaven who lived in my area of New Jersey when he or she was mortal happened to look down from heaven at that moment and said ‘whoa, wait up…he’s okay…fuck it, let him through.’

Sometime in mid-July of ’99, or 18 and 1/2 years ago, I suffered through an all-media screening of Jan DeBont‘s The Haunting. I went with the hope that DeBont, whose stock had plummeted two years earlier after the catastrophe of Speed 2: Cruise Control, might rebound if he would only pay tribute to Robert Wise‘s The Haunting (’63) by relying on eerie suggestion rather practical and CG effects. Alas, he ignored Wise’s approach entirely.

“The Haunting isn’t merely bad,” I wrote in my Mr. Showbiz column. “It’s one of the emptiest, most ineptly plotted, synthetically programmed, pointlessly overdone summer movies I’ve ever seen. I’m now completely convinced that this is the movie that drove Liam Neeson to the brink of retirement. The film’s final close-up is of Neeson and Catherine Zeta Jones wearing looks of utter exhaustion with a hint of self-loathing, and you have to figure that gearing themselves up emotionally for this shot couldn’t have been much of a stretch.”

The Haunting wasn’t a financial wipeout — it cost $80 million to make, earned $91.4 million domestically and $177 million worldwide. But it was so grueling to sit through…well, I don’t know that The Haunting was the reason behind DeDont not landing another directing gig until three years had elapsed — Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (’03). But it sure didn’t help.